10 Christian Stereotypes I Hate

I hate when people assume certain things about me without getting to know who I am. You probably hate that too! Whenever people figure out I am a pastor at a Christian church, they tend to always assume the following:

1. Cussing around me is a no-no. Really? I’m honored that you feel the need to change your attitude/language around me, but you don’t need to try and be on “good behavior” when we are together. Typically, I’m not offended by your language and its not like I have never heard it before. I would rather you just be yourself than trying to be someone else for me.

2. I don’t like homosexuals. I understand why you may have gotten this impression considering some of the ridiculous Christians out there. But, I love them. To be honest, I don’t know why so many of my Christian brothers and sisters elevate this specifically over everything else. When it comes down to it, I love homosexuals just as much as I love you. I wish Christians would fight as passionately against poverty and sex trafficking as they do homosexuality.

3. I don’t drink alcohol. Now you won’t catch me passed out on the floor drunk, but to assume that I don’t drink at all because of my faith is a bit of an overstatement. After all, the first miracle Jesus did was turn water into wine, He knows how to keep the party going.

4. I don’t like to have fun. This probably has a lot to do with rule #3. Because “I don’t drink” then it can be assumed that I don’t like to have fun. Quite the contrary, it just means I have learned to have fun without the need of over intoxicating myself.

5. I’m judging you because you act differently than me. If I have come to realize one thing it is that nobody is perfect. Don’t worry about trying to hide your flaws or your differences because I’m not judging you anyways. Those who judge will be judged and I don’t want any part of that.

6. I am ignorant or uneducated about beliefs other than my own. Actually, it is not “my way or the highway.” Obviously, I, like the rest of Christians, spend most of my time trying to understand my own faith, but to say that I have shut my eyes to everything else in the world is absurd. Don’t assume I have no clue of what exists outside of Christianity.

7. I think I’m better than you. Somehow, because I am Christian, you assume I believe I am better than you. I understand you might get this impression from some of those who wear the Christian name tag, but humility is one of Christianity’s greatest attributes. I don’t think I am better than you regardless of who you are or what you’ve done. We are all on our own journey and everyone’s look a little bit different.

8. I’m Republican. Laugh. Out. Loud. No comment.

9. I ignore science. You might be under the assumption that things like the “Big Bang” and natural selection kill my theory for religion, so I just ignore them altogether. The truth is, I love science and it doesn’t crumble my faith at all. I am just as interested as you are to see how God did it and have yet to come across something that totally shakes my faith to the core on whether or not there was a creator.

10. I’m a hypocrite. Unfortunately, you probably assume this for righteous reasons because you have seen it a lot. But, I want to break the stereotype and say what I mean and do what I say. Of course I fall short just like everyone else, but I am never preaching something that I’m not willing to do in my own life.

Granted, there are probably a lot of Christians out there who meet every single one of these, but don’t assume we are all the same!

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Psalm 131:1-3 ~ “……nor do I involve myself in great matters, Or in things too difficult for me. Surely I have composed and quieted my soul; Like a weaned child rests against his mother, My soul is like a weaned child within me.
O Israel, hope in the LORD From this time forth and forever. Psalm 131:1-3

Praise God for His sovereignty in each circumstance God allows. Psalm 131 encourages us as Believers not be concerned with the things we don’t understand, but to hope in the Lord!…. (Commentary) “We must become as little children, Mt 18:3. Our hearts are desirous of worldly things, cry for them, and are fond of them; but, by the grace of God, a soul that is made holy, is weaned from these things. The child is cross and fretful while in the weaning; but in a day or two it cares no longer for milk, and it can bear stronger food. Thus does a converted soul quiet itself under the loss of what it loved, and disappointments in what it hoped for, and is easy whatever happens. When our condition is not to our mind, we must bring our mind to our condition; then we are easy to ourselves and all about us; then our souls are as a weaned child. And thus the psalmist recommends confidence in God, to all the Israel of God, from his own experience. It is good to hope, and quietly to wait for the salvation of the Lord under every trial”

Look at how much time you guys wasted when you couldve been reaching the lost instead. Bottom line, work out your own salvation with FEAR and TREMBLING, and jusy make sure you live a life that pleases God so when you stand alone before Him on judgement day, youll be ready to an account for your own actions. Grace and peace.

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There is one cristian stereotype that you are:allways reffer other cristians as “brothers” or “sisters”. Seriously, this is annoying!
But as long as someone is not intollerant,im fine with them and their religions. But if you are intollerant… I will find you… AND I WILL BURN DOWN YOUR F##KING HOUSE!!!!!!!!

I’m a Christian and although I am pro-life, there is no reason for me to judge you. You have you r own way of living and that is your choice. I have my own way of living and that is my choice. To say that all Christians are going to judge you because they are Christian is like me saying that because you are atheist, you hate all people and are going to Hell. That is not my judgment to pass. That is not my decision. Just because of my view points in life, I don’t pass judgment on someone who is different than me or believes any differently. I want to break the Christian stereotypes that so many think are true about Christians. I don’t even like to refer to myself as Christian as much anymore because of how a lot of people who call themselves Christian act. I am more a Christ follower. Anyway, whole point of this is to say that you can’t believe every stereotype you see or hear out there because they are not all true.

Nice blog, Brett. You really know some of the stereotypes. And judging by the number of hateful comments from people who obviously self-identify as “Christians,” you made some people very uncomfortable. If your church were in the city where I live, I’d check it out.

After skimming through some of the comments, a few other stereotypes come to mind:

American Fundamentalists have become so politically polarized that they often distrust and hate science, scientific research, and anybody who likes science (or has been to college).

15) ABRAHAMIC RELIGIONS ARE NOT OPEN TO PERSONAL INTERPRETATION.

On the contrary they are dogmatic, cast in stone, and not open to the integration of new ideas as human knowledge and achievements grow.

16) JUDGEMENTAL

One the stereotypes that keeps popping up in the comments, and this is one of the reasons I’m an Atheist, is the double standard that so many have expressed. I was under the impression that Christianity teaches its followers NOT to judge others. By “judge”, I mean to judge someone in the sense that what they do is a “sin” or un-Christian and doing it will make Jesus hate them and send them to Hell.

Some example would be how someone chooses to interpret a particular passage in the Bible (literally 100s of comments are doing just that to Brett and his blog), whether or not they are sexually attracted to someone of the same gender, whether or not they believe the universe is around 4000 or 14000000 years old ( though it gives away their level of education or lack thereof – I understand that this is a common belief among Fundamentalists. ), whether or not they get drink alcohol within moderation. These things are nobody’s business but their own (and their Maker’s if you’re a believer). It’s not the place for any of the Fundamentalists commenting here to cast Judgement for those things. I for one try not to judge others (in the sense that what they do is a “sin”). Disturbingly, 100s of people in their comments here have been so judgmental (in the Divine sense) that its repugnant.

Looks like I can’t edit my post, but it’s clear that a lot (most) posters don’t distinguish between Judgement in the religious sense of the word, as in the Last Judgement, as in Judging a “Sin,” bad behavior in a religion and that will make your deity hate you and probably send you to eternal damnation. To the 200 or so people who have Judged (religious sense) Brett, you have violated that rule of the religion you claim to know so much about and follow so closely (my observation, secular sense of the word judge and completely legal in a Christian context).

The other kind of judgement (lower case) — is very different as in judging in the secular sense of the word. It could mean judging someone guilty or not guilty at court. It also includes things like realizing that we like or dislike something or someone, that someone misbehaves or abuses Scripture and uses Biblical verses as weapons against people like Brett. Or gathering from skimming the comments, realizing that there are a lot of self-righteous idiots here.

Robin, I appreciate your reply on the whole. I think it shows quite a moderate perspective and remarkable deference towards those of us who are believers. Thank you!

“Judging” is one of those tricky words that is the subject of rampant equivocation, which is incredibly unfortunate. To judge another person, in the sense that we are taught not to do by Jesus in the Gospels, means that we are not to value that person on the basis of his or her moral works or obedience to the law. This is, as you say, precisely what some of us have done in this discussion, to my chagrin as their fellow Christian. On the other hand, this sort of judgment does not mean we are to overlook immorality or disobedience to the law–the law of love, in the Christian context. We are to call sin exactly what it is and to call out those who commit sin for their wicked acts against their fellow human beings. In this sense, we might say we are actually directed to judge others. Of course, it is often lost on some folks that there is a difference between these two sorts of judgment. Whatever sin is committed by a person is forgivable by God, except the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which is perhaps a topic for another discussion; regardless of the sin, the fact remains that Christians believe ALL persons are created in the Image of God and therefore bear that Image (the Imago Dei). As an Image-bearer, EVERY person has intrinsic value and is loved by God, regardless of whether that person is someone like Adolf Hitler or Mother Teresa! Thus, we cannot judge ANY person’s worth to be somehow diminished on the basis that he or she has committed evil or continues to do so. In fact, we all have committed evil, and we are all therefore worthy of judgment in the sense that we have rebelled against God and removed ourselves from loving relationship with Him. He does not force any one of us to love Him, so judgment in this sense (in the sense that we are “damned” to eternal punishment in hell) is simply what we have done to ourselves by removing ourselves from right and loving relationship with our loving Father God. That’s often something difficult for Christians and others alike to wrap their minds and hearts around and really come to understand. For Christians, then, everything is about love. As Jurgen Moltmann so eloquently articulated it, God self-identifies as love, everything else (e.g. His goodness, His mercy, His compassion, His justice, His glory, His power, etc.) are merely attributes that are derived from His essential Being of LOVE. If that is the case, then Christians obey Jesus’ command to not “judge” others inasmuch as they continue to see others as not-yet-Christians, as potential brothers and sisters in Christ who have yet to experience their true identity as children of their heavenly Father, family members that are as of yet still estranged and in need of reconciliation with their family. This perspective affirms the humanity of all persons and affords the appropriate dignity of being to all human beings. What unfortunately happens, however, is that Christians are not taught this, especially in our individualism-infatuated culture; because they are not taught to see others as bearing God’s own Image, they therefore see others as “sinners”, as less-than-Christians, essentially dehumanizing others–often even other Christians who may reflect characteristics they see as being in solidarity with “the world”, effectively reducing others to non-human status: anyone who isn’t actually human doesn’t need to be treated as human–and in fact should not be treated as human! And so, we experience this misplaced hate (because hate is what it is) from Christians on the basis that they devalue others because they do not affirm the Image of God in which all persons are created by God.

When we talk about sin, we’re basically talking about the fact that we affirm right and wrong as real ideas that take practical form in human interactions–whether those interactions are between a human person and another human person or persons, or those interactions are between a human person and God. What most Christians in North America tend to fail to recognize is the RELATIONAL nature of sin. Whenever we sin, we sin against SOMEONE! We tend to think of our sin as an individual dilemma, something that we deal with on our own, apart from others. Even our ideas of accountability relationships evidence this mentality. If they’re honest, most Christians will confess–at least between them and God, if not to the rest of us–that they do not reveal the most horrific of their sinful thoughts or actions to their closest accountability relationships. We all have pretensions, and those pretensions prevent us from living in true communion with one another–especially within the church! We want others to perceive us as better than we actually are. The result, then, is a classic case of psychological projection when American Christians interact with non-Christians or even Christians of other faith traditions, such as Reformed and Wesleyan or Baptist and Roman Catholic. We project our own failure to deal honestly with our sin onto others. We then judge them–demean their value as Image-bearers of God–inasmuch as we believe ourselves to have fallen short of God’s glory and to be less-than-human ourselves. This is explicitly addressed in Scripture by Paul when he writes in Romans that we are not to subject ourselves again to the law of sin and death! But we do so anyway, because ultimately, belittling others for our own faults makes us feel better about ourselves as we lord our superior spirituality or piety over others. Of course, this is precisely what Jesus speaks about when he says that it would be better for one to have a mill stone tied around one’s neck and to be cast into the sea than for one to mislead one of these little ones. Jesus is addressing our penchant for abusing the love of God in order to make a hard separation between US (Christians) and THEM (everyone else) that demeans the value of the THEM. By doing so, the US become the spiritual overlords of the world, so to speak, self-avowed as holding the only true means of legitimate entrance into the kingdom of God.

This idea of the US and the THEM, then becomes the great chasm that allows Christians to think of themselves as better than others. To keep that belief alive, it needs continual justification. In order to provide the US with continual justification, the US have to continually engage in behaviors that perpetuate the chasm that provides meaning to the differences between the US and the THEM. In other words, we draw hard lines that we can then use to identify where the US ends and the THEM begins. One such hard line is the classic false dichotomy of faith and science. This may be a very effective example, because it, in turn, allows the pendulum to swing both ways. That is, the THEM now are able to become the US, making the US, the THEM. Those who “believe” in science take it upon themselves to take their vengeance upon the Christians who have so long subjected them to being one of THEM, the inferior, the non-human, the subjects of their theological abuse. In doing so, they make Christians out to be the inferior, the non-human, the subjects of their “scientific” abuse. The former US (Christians of all flavors today, but perhaps especially militantly those who identify as conservative fundamentalists) in turn seek to perpetuate their US-status by militantly deriding “science” as inferior to–and opposed to–“faith”. The fact of the matter is that this faith-science debate is completely erroneous, a false dichotomy that divorces, rips apart two identifiable realities that actually exist in a nuanced dialectic. Actually, we would be remiss to take for granted the fact that theology was known for centuries, until very recently, as the “Queen of the sciences”! This speaks to the more primitive–yet far more correct–perception of theology and science as two sides of the same coin. I dare anyone to back up any claim to a belief that is not in some way related to the knowledge that one has based that belief upon! Even the traditional “Jesus loves me; this I know,” is followed up by, “for the Bible tells me so.” 1) Belief, based on 2) Knowledge on which that belief is based. This is exactly why Scripture exhorts Christians to STUDY to show themselves APPROVED, to be ready in-season-and-out with an answer for the faith we have in us! One of the traditional criticisms leveled against the church in the West has been that, “Christians check their brains at the door of the church.” Unfortunately, this is all too true. By-and-large, American Christians have done this, to their own great hurt, and to the obliteration of their witness to our culture and society. This, taken together with our theology of the cross and our infatuation with the idolatry of individualism, constitutes possibly the primary reason for the decline of Christianity in the West.

The Bible teaches that all truth is God’s truth. And truth does not exist apart from love. And love, that is, God, does not exist apart from relationship. We affirm this in every creed of the church with which I am familiar when we affirm a Trinitarian articulation of the form of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God exists in loving relationship WITHIN HIMSELF AND TRANSCENDENT OF EXISTENCE. Thus, for Christians (you cannot be a Christian without affirming the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, for this is the Christians’ identification of themselves), the fundamental principle of all existence is RELATIONSHIP. Everything that is broken in our existence is the manifestation of the failure of some relationship. Therefore, in order to heal the brokenness of our world, we need restoration to right–loving–relationships, both between us and God, us and one another, and us and all creation (including Earth and the ecological world). The way to healing, we believe, is through the reconciliation of humans to God. This reconciliation is enabled by the redemption of our rightly-ordered affections by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ. In other words, we are restored to right relationship with God through the resurrection of Christ ( who is the God-man, the Incarnation, who died in solidarity with all humans and who was thus made sin by God that we might be reconciled to God through faith in Christ), and through the restoration of our vertical relationship with God, God then mediates His grace through us to all the Creation, to everything that exists, both other humans and all the rest of the ecological world, that all relationships might be rightly-ordered in their affections and thereby redeemed, made new.

All of this is the classic and historic perspective of Christianity. What most people experience in America and in the West is an aberration of Christianity that is entirely foreign to orthodox Christianity, and therefore full of error and abuse. Every atheist I’ve ever met has no understanding, no knowledge of this historic articulation of the Christian faith, and their disbelief is grounded in the reaction to the false articulations of Christianity to which they have been subjected. Now, I am obviously not saying that EVERY atheist is an atheist for this reason. I am not even claiming that any atheist is an atheist for this reason. I am saying, however, that many, many atheists have been influenced by their interactions with false articulations of Christianity that have tended to treat them as less-than-human because of their disbelief or perceived lack of unthinking and unquestioning “faith”.

To all those Image-bearers, to all my potential brothers and sisters in Christ, to all of you who are estranged members of my family to whom I long to be reunited in love, I speak on behalf of our Christian people and say that we are sorry for having treated you as less-than-human, for having lorded our piety and spirituality over you, for having subjected you to the “THEM” and having ostracized you from fellowship with the rest of our family, and for our hypocrisy in which we have dealt unfairly with you by judging your value as human persons on the basis of the same moral bankruptcy of which we ourselves are guilty! I beg your forgiveness and seek reconciliation with you as I long for authentic relationships with all of you who we have hurt and abused–authentic relationships that will be instead marked by extraordinary and radical love! I know this apology might be cheesy. I don’t care. I know specific individuals I have wronged, and I repent of my pretensions in believing myself to be somehow more human or better than you. I affirm the dignity of your humanity, and I promise to determine to do no more injury, even though I know I am imperfect and incapable to ultimately keep that promise perfectly.

To all my fellow Christians, I trust you will follow me as I follow Christ, repent for the way we have treated our fellow human beings, our fellow Image-bearers, our family members whom we have estranged or who are otherwise estranged. I trust you will please the Holy Spirit by committing to refuse to any longer lord our piety and our spirituality over others, refuse to any longer devalue and dehumanize our potential brothers and sisters in Christ for the same moral bankruptcy of which we ourselves are guilty.

Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus, so that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God.

What an excellent essay! I think you most eloquently put to words almost everything that is in my heart and mind, concerning the state of Christianity as I have come to experience it throughout my 40+ years on this earth!

Thanks, NumbGnat! I profoundly appreciate you saying that, but more importantly, I am so very thankful that God has done such a wonderful work in your life by the power of the Holy Spirit. Thank you for being open to the work of the Spirit in your life and making yourself available to God!

I am adopted and I grew up in a Christian home. For the most part, my adopted parents are good Christians, but at a young age (10 or so), I overheard conversations and or comments around the house that resonated with the US/THEM mentality. Even at that age, I knew that was not how God would expect us to act as Christians.

My adopted family was fairly prominent in a very small town community. (Local Clothing Merchants, City Council, County Sheriff, etc) Thus, they were always stressing the “family image” to me and how important it was to dress nice and present yourself nice, etc. And, while they certainly do what they can to help people less fortunate than themselves, I always struggled trying to justify that with the US/THEM point of view that was recognizable in a private setting.

In my older years, I was lucky enough to have my biological family track me down and find me. As I have gotten to know many of them, I find them to be much more like the type of Christians that I always believed God meant us to be.

So I find myself wondering if this instinctive notion of how I was supposed to be living my life and treating others, was somehow passed along to me genetically from my birth mother. A woman who throughout her life encountered many struggles and often did what she wanted to do rather than worry about how her “image” might be perceived, but at the same time, loved and cherished all of her friends and family, apparently unconditionally.

Unfortunately she passed away this year, so the only way I can learn more about her and her life is through the half siblings and biological family that are remaining.

He may be. If he is, he may even be right to do so. As an adoptive parent, I experience our culture as being inexorably stricken by a sense of biological family that bewilders me. Often especially in Christian homes of adopted children, love was not the motivating factor that initiated and sustained the adoptive relationship. Pride was the motivating factor, manifesting in the very sort of image-consciousness to which NumbGnat seems to have been subjected. This often results in adopted children experiencing a profound sense of a loss of identity and a disillusionment in their experience of family, usually in their teens or early adulthood. The fact of the matter is that most biological children experience something similar, too, in our society, because love for the potential child in the hearts and minds of his or her parents was not the motivating factor for that child’s conception or birth. My wife’s family is a horribly common example of this, where her parents explicitly stated that they needed to have another child, and then another, in order to save their marriage–which is, of course, absurd! But even so, biological children are considered “real” children in our society, while adopted children are obviously, then, not “real” children of their parents. Adoptive parents are often the worst culprits of this sort of abuse, because in their sense of entitlement to have children regardless of their motivations for doing so, they fail to make meaningful love decisions towards their children. It is a great travesty that most parents of most children don’t even think about their actions intentionally leading to the birth of those children. In the case of adoptive children, adopted parents simply are not honest with themselves about their motivations for adopting. If I had a penny for every time I’ve heard someone say, “Well, we couldn’t have our own kids, so we decided to adopt,”… … That sort of thinking is exactly the sort of entitlement mentality that makes me sick to my stomach, because it results in children who are adopted for the sake of their parents rather than for their own sake, as the means to the end of their parents’ gratification of whatever selfish motivation they’re hiding behind the guise of charity! My daughter is MY OWN daughter, MY REAL daughter! Any adopted parent should be able to say the same with a conviction that comes from having made the intentional love decision that brought that child altruistically into their home for that child’s sake!

That’s quite a remarkable experience! I am truly sorry for your loss. I can’t imagine what it must be like to lose your mother.

I grew up in a family much like yours, though I was not adopted; however, I did grow up with a sense of being adopted, or perhaps more accurately, fostered. My dad always considered my siblings and me to be his foster children, while we were regularly told that our “real” father was our loving heavenly Father. It’s an interesting way to grow up. Suffice to say, I have never been able to articulate “family” in terms of biology. I can only understand “family” in terms of loving relationships. My daughter is adopted, and my wife and I do not hide that fact from her. She is in fact quite free at any time to contact her biological mother at any time. My wife and I both came to the realization several years ago that blood means almost nothing. While sometimes those biological bonds serve as the impetus for meaningful, loving relationships, one’s family isn’t defined merely by blood–or even by blood at all! One’s family is defined by the relationships that obtain between people as they seek to love one another unconditionally. It sounds like that’s something you experienced with your biological mom, thankfully! I hope that our daughter will be able to experience that one day soon, too.

Adoption is, amazingly, the way God describes His relationship with His children! Adoption language is so prolific in Scripture, in fact, that we understand ourselves as Christians as joint-heirs with Christ through adoption by God into our heavenly family–brothers and sisters to one another and Jesus Christ, sons and daughters of our true, adoptive Father. The image is powerful, and it cuts to my heart, leaving me filled with awe and wonder at such a love as this! And now, I experience the mediated grace of God as I live out a life that demonstrates that same love to my daughter. Honestly, in all the beauty of this broken world that does exist to reflect the creative hand of God, this love is the greatest–a love of a different kind. She continues to grow and blossom, and as she does, she is every bit our daughter that any biological child of ours would ever be. Love initiated our relationship with her and sustains it. Even so, love initiated my relationship with my heavenly Father and sustains it. It is true love that fills the heart and satisfies the soul! And my prayer for my daughter is that she will experience an understanding of family, initiated by the love of God and sustained by His love, freed from even the inhibitions and misgivings that I yet have. this blessing of love passing from generation to generation and from glory to yet greater glory. As many as received Christ, to them God gives the right to become His very own children, even to those who believe in His name, who are born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of any human person, but rather, born of God, who is Love.

Hey Jared, Thanks for the thoughtful response. I enjoyed reading it. There are some interesting things to think about — being judgemental (and creating a conflict between US versus THEM) versus calling out others for bad behavior; love (God) versus denial/isolation from love; science and religion being the same sides of a coin; Western individualism (to the point of obsession) versus being part of a community. I even looked up Jurgen Moltmann on Wikipedia. Interesting man.

About NumbGnat’s comment that his parents had an US vs THEM mentality at times. He didn’t come across as being Judgemental in the bad way, but was only being aware of something which, as you said, is something everyone should do (but obviously not to the point of gloating or becoming fixated on it).

I liked how described the US vs THEM phenomenon. I think everyone does it to some extent and uses whatever knowledge, experience, prestige, status, belief system (or opposition to one) to justify and rationalize it. I catch myself doing it. In my opinion, I think the world would be better off if we all stopped trying to dehumanize one another.

@helen: I was most certainly not being judgemental of my adopted parents. I was simply trying to articulate the difference in the practicing Christianity between my adopted parents and my biological parents…

“And, while they certainly do what they can to help people less fortunate than themselves, I always struggled trying to justify that with the US/THEM point of view that was recognizable in a private setting.”

They loved me and raised me wonderfully and I’m super happy that I was given the chance to live my life, let alone being placed with such a loving family. When I finally met my birth mother, I made sure to stress to her that I was grateful for her giving me the chance at life (as opposed to today’s alternatives). I wanted to make sure she knew that I had never held that decision against her.

What I was meaning to articulate is that even though the adopted family I grew up with practiced Christianity in a slightly more US/THEM way, somehow I instinctively knew that was something I shouldn’t do. And finding out much later in life that my biological family was much more like me, it made me wonder if that “instinct” was passed on to me genetically… It’s just a strange thing.

So cool, NumbGnat! That is such a wonderful experience to be able to share! I agree with you about your birthmom. That decision to give you up for adoption is one of the bravest and most loving decisions that can be made in our contemporary context!

I don’t know about the genetic link, but I do know that research in neuroscience suggests that patterns of brain function, which drive reasoning and patterns of processing and assessing information, is affected by those of one’s biological parentage to some degree. Unfortunately, to what extent is almost impossible to determine still. It would be really interesting to find out, though.

Wow. I am not usually one to comment on posts like this, but…
As an Atheist, pro-choice, liberal, female, democrat (I noticed people liked listing what they are) I have higher morals and better manners than most of the people I see commenting.
The article was a light-hearted, silly list of what one individual believes and goes through, and I appreciate it. I am all for everyone having their own religious beliefs as long as you are happy and not hurting anyone..
But the people I see commenting are the reason many Christians get a bad reputation.
You look crazy.
“JESUS DIDN’T DRINK”
“HOMOS ARE THE WORST” “THIS ARTICLE IS NOT WHAT GOD WOULD WANT”
My goodness. Relax.
Also, comparing gay people to pedophiles is just ridiculous and terrible, Crazy Christine. I saw you.

Jared, Great comments! You are absolutely right in saying that most Christians forget that when they commit a sin, they commit it against SOMEONE. ANd on the adoption note, I have a friend who was adopted (not sure if the family claimed Christianity or not) and it was definitely a situation where pride was the mainreason for adopting. The friend came from a bad situation in India, so the fact that the family was adopting a child from such awful circumstances dud more to boost their ego than their love for him.

As I’ve had issues with the common stereotypes, I don’t fit them with the exception of my being Republican. What goes along with that is my being pro-life and not agreeing with same-sex marriage, and the latter doesn’t make one a homophobe either. And treating gays as outcasts also isn’t right. One doesn’t have to be a fundamentalist to take those stances. Although those who fit the stereotypes listed tend to vote Republican, that doesn’t mean all Republican voters fit the stereotypes, in fact most don’t. The same goes for the fact that not all Democratic voters are atheists.

Very disapointing. We can not serve God and live like the world. Jesus was not accepted and neither can we be if we are like Him. If cursing and drinking in my presence makes one uncomfortable, it is a good thing! The things u mention that u are comfortable with really is sin. Yes we are to witness and pray for those who do not know Jesus. We cannot b holier than thou!! But we can not blend in. Elsewise, we are not different than the world! When we say we r Christians, we are to b Christlike in our thoughts and actions. There is no in the middle. People look on us and expect us to b different.

So much yes!! I wish people knew that Christians know how to have fun. Well, some of us at least. I want to see more Christian art, movies, poems, adventure, books… I want to see GOOD stuff, not just sloppy spamming of classic Biblical morals. Let’s have fun!